From Cashmere to Kashmir

The realization that ‘cashmere’ is nothing but an anglicized version of ‘Kashmir’ came to me two decades too late while I was going through ‘Items: Is Fashion Modern?’ curated by MoMA. I had assumed it was the name for the type of wool, like Angora, and I was comfortable in that bubble. My admission should embarrass me, especially when everyone around me seemed to know about it. But I have become used to this embarrassment.

After all, I actively chose to grow up alienated from my culture.

Why? I have a worn-in anecdote explaining that, and it goes like this: I was 12 years old when I fell in love with fashion. That sentence is often self-explanatory to every person of color familiar with the industry. For you see, the fashion industry is a lot of things — aspirational being one of them. But that aspirational nature cleverly conceals centuries of something far sinister — exploitation.

It is an industry built using the appropriated crafts of colonized people, wrapping necessities in a shiny, White package of covetable aspirations.

I am aware I use heavy words; I can reassure you they are justly used.

A friend (whom I feel compelled to mention is a white American) and I discussed this last night. She is a fellow fashion history enthusiast, and between us, we could name only three garments that are seemingly devoid of any history of appropriation and could be claimed as Western inventions. Namely — clogs, denim, and a leather jacket. After racking our brains for a while, she suggested the miniskirt. I promptly reminded her that the skirt was appropriated from lehenga-choli worn by Indian slave women in the 17th century and that reducing its length was hardly an invention.

I would not have known that fact a couple of years ago. Back then, I had a very White understanding of the industry. Whatever I consumed — whatever was being promoted by the industry — was predominantly White. My culture, along with many other ethnic cultures (if not all), only gets space to exist in the industry if it is palatable to a White audience. The tokenization of diversity, inclusion, and representation is relatively new. As a child growing up in love with fashion, investing in my own culture was decidedly not en vogue.

I couldn’t do anything about my skin color, but I could do something about how I presented myself to the world. My adolescent hands never learned how to drape the sari and hated being stained with henna. I dreamed of growing up and flying away to the countries that are the fashion industry, completely ignoring the richness of my roots. No list of fashion capitals mentions Delhi or Mumbai (or Bombay, if you prefer the anglicized version).

As I mentioned initially, I was comfortable in a bubble of obliviousness.

But the ‘fashion’ I fell in love with is not the one I know now. Our relationship soured. I witnessed the acts of cultural colonialism, experienced exploitation and tokenization, the discrimination. My very existence was being disregarded as enthusiastically as Parisian design houses were being endorsed, the secret ateliers of which operate in my country. It is an insidious operation with fake promises of transparency.

I found myself locked out of the industry I spent my entire life worshipping. I was an outsider, even with an undergraduate degree that cost me much more than money.

It is only of late that I have realized loving fashion can mean two things — you either love it enough to change every aspect of yourself and submit, or you fight for a change that you might not be alive to see happen. The latter is where I fit. I don’t know if that should fill me with pride or if I should be concerned. Do I say, “Thankfully, I am the latter,” or is “Unfortunately, I am the latter” a better fit? I believe I am a long way from having an answer to that.

What I do know is that the bubble has burst. The allure of this industry no longer blinds me. I can instead acknowledge and see the truths. The process of unlearning and relearning is well on its way, and it began with me learning to drape the sari finally. I often wear them now. It fills me with the pride my mother used to talk about when I was a child. I never thought I would understand what she meant by it, but it fills me with unbridled joy to admit that I do now.

And it feels amusing to admit that it probably would never have happened if I hadn’t fallen down the rabbit hole where I found out that pants are appropriated garments, originating from…